Question for PTS folk: is the Runeblades skill really that useless?

LukosCreyden · June 2023

It seems that most people are using tentacles (i forget the morph name) as their spammable on Arcanist. This is a shame, as I do like the look of the Runeblades spammable and it'd suck if the designated spammable of the class is obsolete right out of the gate. So, is the spammable really not worth using? When I read the class skills, I picture the general rotation to be:

Runeblades x3
Tentacle for debuff
Runeblades x3
Beam

But, this does not seem to be how people are playing it, instead favoring the crux building morph on tentacle, as opposed to the "bigger debuff" morph.
So, is runeblade worth using or is it being overshadowed by tentacle completely?

EramTheLiar · June 2023

It's not useless, it's pretty much what you expect a spammable to be, and if you're using the frost morph of tentacles the rotation is exactly how you describe. Also it has more range than tentacles. But cephilarcs flail is just plain nuts and it builds crux, so it's hard to justify not using it. And this comes from someone who REALLY likes the runeblades animation and sound.

ADarklore · June 2023

The 3x Runeblades, 1x Ceph's Flail, 3x Runeblades, 1x Fatecarver was how the devs showed off using the skills... but people learned quickly that it wasn't the best way. 3x Ceph's Flail and 1x Fatecarver does the same thing, but you get the extra heal and debuff from Flail that you don't get with Runeblades.

IMO, it all depends on what content you're running and how you want play. Personally slotting Runeblades AND Ceph's Flail is a waste of a slot IMO, especially when running with Oakensoul as you're limited to one bar.

If I'm running staff, I run with Runeblades so I can remain fully at range, if I'm running DW, I drop Runeblades and go with Ceph's Flail.

Typically, difficult content is where I want to remain more at range- such as World Bosses, soloing group dungeon bosses, etc., that's where I go the staff route. Overland or trash mobs, I go DW and use Ceph's Flail. Honestly, the debuff with Flail isn't necessary IMO... you can definitely complete content without it. So for Ceph's Flail, unless you like the skill, unless you like the animation, unless you need the extra heal, unless you want to play more mid-range or melee, it's more of a personal build choice.

Since I run with companions, they do the extra healing, so I don't even need to rely on Ceph's Flail for that, but I appreciate that the devs listened and added a class DPS heal.

Ecgberht_confused · June 2023

I prefer the Runeblades animation. The extra range is also a big advantage, and it hits harder than the flail outside of execute. I'm also planning an Altmer magicka arcanist so having a stam based flail as spammable will be problematic.

However, the heal is on the flail not runeblades, so I'll be using the flail as spammable. And I can't really justify using them both, so unfortunately, even though I really like runeblades, I won't be able to use it at all. Since the flail heal is the only dps heal the class has, it'll all come down to it.

I'd happily switch to runeblades as spammable ( while still using flail as a debuf) if it had a heal, or if the flail heal was moved to say fatecarver or as a passive.

Soarora · June 2023

I’ve been doing exactly as you describe. It’s more to juggle but it’s not useless either, almost to 100k parse using that method and it adds range to a melee DPS. I tried dropping runeblades and it didn’t do as well for me but maybe I’ll try it again.

WrathOfInnos · June 2023

Ceph flail is the superior spammable because it gives you bar space for things like Deadly Cloak, Barbed Trap and Camo Hunter front bar, along with Fatecarver of course.

Also keep in mind that you only need to cast 2 spammables to get to 3 stacks of Crux, because Inspired Scholarship will generate the first one. In general you will be beaming about half the time, and refreshing DoTs whenever possible. You only have time for approx 10-11 casts of Flail per minute, so you are not exactly spamming anything.

If you were to try adding Runeblades that would mean only 7-8 casts per minute (3 casts remain Flail for the debuff). It's just not worth a bar slot for so few casts, when its damage and effects are nothing special. Especially when you consider that Flail will still be used in execute, or when you need more AoE, or when you want to self heal.

BasP · June 2023

I've mostly tested a Khajiit Stamina Arcanist with Cephaliarch's Flail as a spammable for my Arcanist solo build, even before ZoS added the heal to CF, and I'll probably use that build most of the time once I've leveled it on the live server.

Meanwhile I've done some tests with a Magicka build with Runeblades as a spammable too though, and I think I'll still use Cephaliarch's Flail instead of Tentacular Dread whenever I feel like switching from that Stam build to a Mag build.

On a 6M dummy the DPS I did with my Magicka build with CF and TD was roughly the same (both 50+K). I could easily sustain the parses without using any potions with CF however, as opposed to needing to use Mag pots with TD. Considering I'll need to use Magicka too for one or two defensive skills when soloing, I'll probably prefer the additional sustain from using the Stamina morph. (That said, I'll most likely level both morphs nonetheless.)

LittlePinkDot · June 2023

EramTheLiar wrote: »

It's not useless, it's pretty much what you expect a spammable to be, and if you're using the frost morph of tentacles the rotation is exactly how you describe. Also it has more range than tentacles. But cephilarcs flail is just plain nuts and it builds crux, so it's hard to justify not using it. And this comes from someone who REALLY likes the runeblades animation and sound.

I can't participate in PTS.
Doesn't the frost morph of tentacles do more damage than the Flail morph?

I'm trying to fit one arcanist damage skill in to a bow based poison damage PvP arcanist build. But trying to be a decent hybrid. I was looking at the frost tentacles to be a kind of nuke skill when I spend Crux gained from Chakram of Destiny buff skill.
Is frost tentacles good enough?
Does it chill or freeze target?

EramTheLiar · June 2023

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

EramTheLiar wrote: »

It's not useless, it's pretty much what you expect a spammable to be, and if you're using the frost morph of tentacles the rotation is exactly how you describe. Also it has more range than tentacles. But cephilarcs flail is just plain nuts and it builds crux, so it's hard to justify not using it. And this comes from someone who REALLY likes the runeblades animation and sound.

I can't participate in PTS.
Doesn't the frost morph of tentacles do more damage than the Flail morph?

I'm trying to fit one arcanist damage skill in to a bow based poison damage PvP arcanist build. But trying to be a decent hybrid. I was looking at the frost tentacles to be a kind of nuke skill when I spend Crux gained from Chakram of Destiny buff skill.
Is frost tentacles good enough?
Does it chill or freeze target?

The frost morph does more damage (or at least, the damage buff it gives other attacks is larger) but I didn't find it a compelling boost. And the shining spotlight of radiant chlorophyll will do far more damage with max crux than the tentacle will. Cephilarch, on the other hand, is a generator. That makes it a spammable that is ALSO a buff on your beam attack and ALSO an immobilize and ALSO a self-heal and ALSO an execute when target health falls below 50%.

Also both tentacles only have a 15m range so I think you'd find either frustrating with a bow.

LittlePinkDot · June 2023

EramTheLiar wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

EramTheLiar wrote: »

It's not useless, it's pretty much what you expect a spammable to be, and if you're using the frost morph of tentacles the rotation is exactly how you describe. Also it has more range than tentacles. But cephilarcs flail is just plain nuts and it builds crux, so it's hard to justify not using it. And this comes from someone who REALLY likes the runeblades animation and sound.

I can't participate in PTS.
Doesn't the frost morph of tentacles do more damage than the Flail morph?

I'm trying to fit one arcanist damage skill in to a bow based poison damage PvP arcanist build. But trying to be a decent hybrid. I was looking at the frost tentacles to be a kind of nuke skill when I spend Crux gained from Chakram of Destiny buff skill.
Is frost tentacles good enough?
Does it chill or freeze target?

The frost morph does more damage (or at least, the damage buff it gives other attacks is larger) but I didn't find it a compelling boost. And the shining spotlight of radiant chlorophyll will do far more damage with max crux than the tentacle will. Cephilarch, on the other hand, is a generator. That makes it a spammable that is ALSO a buff on your beam attack and ALSO an immobilize and ALSO a self-heal and ALSO an execute when target health falls below 50%.

Also both tentacles only have a 15m range so I think you'd find either frustrating with a bow.

Oh I'm not going to use beam at all.
I need a spender, not a generator.
My main spammable skills will be Snipe(Lethal arrow) and acid spray or poison injection.
I will only generate Crux from defensive skills.

ADarklore · June 2023

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Oh I'm not going to use beam at all.
I need a spender, not a generator.
My main spammable skills will be Snipe(Lethal arrow) and acid spray or poison injection.
I will only generate Crux from defensive skills.

I like Tidal Chakram, it's a shield, but it spends crux. I really only slot it when I want to get rid of the annoying crux triangles spinning around me when I'm out of combat. Thankfully I use AlphaGear addon, that I can keybind the skill to, so I can click to quickly add it, spend the crux to get rid of the triangles, then click again to return to my regular build.

However, there aren't really many other 'spenders' other than beam DPS, beam Heal and squid-arm that spend crux besides the shield.

YandereGirlfriend · June 2023

I continue to think it's weird that there are so few Crux-interactive abilities.

IMO, every morph should either build or spend.

Shadowbinder7 · April 7

Hey ZOS devs remember this thread from last year? I am still so sad since the Arcanist was released last year that you have designed this class so that stamina will always be superior to magicka!

I like the stamina Arcanist but on my magicka Arcanist I still want to use runeblades and ideally tentacular dread over cephaliarchs flail, in a combination with the beam that makes it worth it doing so for the magicka arcanist, over simply forcing them to play like a stamina Arcanists (flail+beam).

Please if you read this can you not understand that this is not “play how you want” but more “here are a bunch of abilities in a new class, some are defunct in combination and will perform a lot worse for one spec of dd compared to another”

It’s just like dragonknight with stone fist and lava whip. Stone fist should have been optimised for stamdk and lava whip for Magdk, or at least, stone fist and whip in combination should be somehow the optimal stamdk set up, and magdk just whip.

If any of the combat team devs read this I implore you to please start balancing your combat system to be more fair across each mag and stam spec of each class, maybe the scribing system will help you to accomplish this? Please don’t let the game fall to combat system ruin due to neglecting many old changes, skill and abilitiy tweaks etc. Leaving passives and skills and so on defunct or not useful and approximately equal in output in a different play style for every class whatever the scenario may be, will simply leave more mess for the combat system unaccounted for.

Even things like vampire and psijic skill lines as a side. It’s such a shame they were left behind lacklustre, when they could be made so much more involved in both mag and stam builds, as well as healers/tanks in pve, as well as pvp

Please consider, I like many long term players, only want the game to improve and be more flexible and fun, and not awkward and stressful to play.

LittlePinkDot · April 8

Shadowbinder7 wrote: »

Hey ZOS devs remember this thread from last year? I am still so sad since the Arcanist was released last year that you have designed this class so that stamina will always be superior to magicka!

I like the stamina Arcanist but on my magicka Arcanist I still want to use runeblades and ideally tentacular dread over cephaliarchs flail, in a combination with the beam that makes it worth it doing so for the magicka arcanist, over simply forcing them to play like a stamina Arcanists (flail+beam).

Please if you read this can you not understand that this is not “play how you want” but more “here are a bunch of abilities in a new class, some are defunct in combination and will perform a lot worse for one spec of dd compared to another”

It’s just like dragonknight with stone fist and lava whip. Stone fist should have been optimised for stamdk and lava whip for Magdk, or at least, stone fist and whip in combination should be somehow the optimal stamdk set up, and magdk just whip.

If any of the combat team devs read this I implore you to please start balancing your combat system to be more fair across each mag and stam spec of each class, maybe the scribing system will help you to accomplish this? Please don’t let the game fall to combat system ruin due to neglecting many old changes, skill and abilitiy tweaks etc. Leaving passives and skills and so on defunct or not useful and approximately equal in output in a different play style for every class whatever the scenario may be, will simply leave more mess for the combat system unaccounted for.

Even things like vampire and psijic skill lines as a side. It’s such a shame they were left behind lacklustre, when they could be made so much more involved in both mag and stam builds, as well as healers/tanks in pve, as well as pvp

Please consider, I like many long term players, only want the game to improve and be more flexible and fun, and not awkward and stressful to play.

Fyi Magicka Arcanist makes the best and most fun tank in my opinion. Rune of displacement is awesome for pulling trash. And they just buffed it.
And Magicka Arcanist has its own class taunt that's ranged and Magicka, runic embrace. And Rune of the colourless pool gives minor brittle.